Latest / Pit Talk / Is Russell back on track, and can Verstappen still be a contender? Austrian GP Review

Transcript

Is Russell back on track, and can Verstappen still be a contender? Austrian GP Review · Pit Talk

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannon's.
0:09
Speaker 1: On today's episode, George Russell plains his second Grand Prix
0:12
Speaker 1: victory of the season in Austria to cut his championship
0:15
Speaker 1: deficit to forty points. But should Max Verstappen have won
0:19
Speaker 1: the race, and what does Red Bull Racing's big upgrade
0:22
Speaker 1: mean for his future? A speculation continues to swirl around
0:26
Speaker 1: his intentions. My name's Michael Lomonato. It's great to have
0:29
Speaker 1: your company and the company of my co hosts. He's
0:32
Speaker 1: about to tuck into some good old English strawberries and cream.
0:35
Speaker 1: Look out for those German strawberries. It's Matt Clayton.
0:38
Speaker 2: Oh, I can't do this already. It's five days before sylvested.
0:43
Speaker 2: I'm preemptively upset about this, I've got to say preemptively.
0:46
Speaker 2: But the one thing I was hoping that we could
0:49
Speaker 2: do in this episode, you know, is maybe provide better
0:51
Speaker 2: coverage in the TV direction of Austria on the weekend,
0:54
Speaker 2: because that was kind of interesting. That was a make
0:56
Speaker 2: it up as you go along. But one thing I
0:58
Speaker 2: did want to talk about just off the top, because
1:00
Speaker 2: there's nowhere else we're going to shoehard this into this episode.
1:03
Speaker 2: The drone camera between turns four and six. I'm kind
1:06
Speaker 2: of hoping we can be in this podcast a little
1:08
Speaker 2: bit like I felt about that drone camera a lot
1:10
Speaker 2: mildly interesting and going quite well, but then make feeling
1:13
Speaker 2: increasingly like I want to vomit by the end of
1:15
Speaker 2: the race. But I'm not sure how you felt about that,
1:17
Speaker 2: but I thought they might have overdone that one.
1:19
Speaker 1: Just to touch yes, I distinctly got the sense that
1:22
Speaker 1: someone at headquarters going, well, we've paid for it. Yeah,
1:26
Speaker 1: I thought it. In qualifying, it was fine. In qualifying
1:29
Speaker 1: was fine because you know, you can predict exactly what
1:31
Speaker 1: the car is going to do and you don't have
1:32
Speaker 1: to see a car every second. But covering and we
1:36
Speaker 1: saw quite a lot of action to turn for the
1:37
Speaker 1: exit of turn four, I found very frustrating for the
1:40
Speaker 1: drone camera, So I think just a little bit more
1:43
Speaker 1: judicious use get some value for money out of that.
1:46
Speaker 1: If anyone's seen the videos online as well, it's a
1:49
Speaker 1: crazy small little device. Yeah, you know, very impressive, but
1:53
Speaker 1: a bit two sideways from me.
1:55
Speaker 2: Very impressive. Made it hard to follow overtakes, and I
1:57
Speaker 2: sort of had that feeling like you know when you
1:59
Speaker 2: go to an amusement and someone goes, oh, come on
2:01
Speaker 2: one more rollercoaster and you're like, all right, you get
2:03
Speaker 2: on it and go, oh my god, I think I'm done.
2:05
Speaker 2: So hopefully we can get people to the end of
2:07
Speaker 2: this episode without making them feel like they want to
2:09
Speaker 2: throw up. So that's the aim for today's episode, isn't it?
2:11
Speaker 1: Yes? Exactly and well, much like the broadcast. As you mentioned,
2:14
Speaker 1: this being an audio only podcast, you'll probably see about
2:16
Speaker 1: as much action as you did in the Grand Prix
2:20
Speaker 1: Very good. You didn't see much of George Russell too
2:23
Speaker 1: much of the Grand Prix, and that's because he was
2:25
Speaker 1: leaning pretty comfortably from pole position, never truly threatened. I
2:29
Speaker 1: think I'm comfortable in saying, even though it did get
2:32
Speaker 1: quite close towards the end, you never felt like he
2:35
Speaker 1: had mismanaged that gap. It felt like it had ended
2:37
Speaker 1: exactly as planned for him on a weekend in which
2:40
Speaker 1: he looked much closer about I'm willing to say, not
2:44
Speaker 1: exactly like the driver we expected him to be pre season,
2:48
Speaker 1: a driver about all the variables under control, a driver
2:51
Speaker 1: who this weekend in particularly, looked like he had that
2:53
Speaker 1: experience advantage. Over his teammate a steadying weekend, and I
2:57
Speaker 1: can't believe every time I've said this, I still can't
2:59
Speaker 1: believe it just his second win of the season, eight
3:02
Speaker 1: rounds in.
3:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that too, And because of just the
3:05
Speaker 2: way that Australia played out, and that seems like it
3:07
Speaker 2: was about three seasons ago, Australia in March, but that
3:11
Speaker 2: fit in very neatly with this. Well, of course the
3:13
Speaker 2: season's going to go like this narrative that we probably
3:15
Speaker 2: thought about before the season started. But there's something you
3:18
Speaker 2: touched on there that I thought was really key to
3:21
Speaker 2: the whole weekend. The word experienced and this felt like
3:24
Speaker 2: I feel like two things. It felt like a win
3:25
Speaker 2: he had to slash, needed to have just because of
3:28
Speaker 2: the way the season has panned out since Albert Park,
3:31
Speaker 2: but also a win born of perhaps being that senior
3:34
Speaker 2: figure and the more experienced driver in that team where
3:38
Speaker 2: everyone's been talking about Kimmie Antonelli, how great the rise
3:41
Speaker 2: has been. Look at all these races hes won in
3:42
Speaker 2: a row. Wow, look at this championship lead. It was
3:45
Speaker 2: that steadying win of an experienced driver that Okay, the
3:49
Speaker 2: points table still doesn't look great, but it's one of
3:52
Speaker 2: those ones that you need to sort of plant your
3:54
Speaker 2: flag and the sand a little bit and stand up
3:56
Speaker 2: for it. And I thought the experience part of it
3:58
Speaker 2: was interesting because how you saw it. I know, it
4:01
Speaker 2: sounds like a silly thing to say for someone that
4:03
Speaker 2: was on poland led basically the entire race. I wasn't
4:06
Speaker 2: one hundred percent convinced he was the fastest driver in
4:08
Speaker 2: Austria over the course of the weekend. So when you
4:11
Speaker 2: can take poland win a race in a circumstance where
4:14
Speaker 2: perhaps you're not the quickest driver, that's where the experienced
4:17
Speaker 2: part comes into it. And it was a really important win,
4:21
Speaker 2: which sounds like a silly thing to say, given we've
4:22
Speaker 2: got fourteen rounds still to go, but in terms of
4:25
Speaker 2: what's still coming for the rest of the season, it
4:27
Speaker 2: wasn't a must win, but it was certainly a very
4:29
Speaker 2: handy win, just in terms of steering the narrative a
4:33
Speaker 2: little bit because it had followed a familiar pattern pretty
4:36
Speaker 2: much since China after we left Australia. This is one
4:38
Speaker 2: he needed.
4:39
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, I think there's a couple of elements
4:41
Speaker 1: in that that are are really important. It's the need
4:43
Speaker 1: not just for the bald points tally, if you like,
4:46
Speaker 1: which was almost three clear race wins behind Antonelly. Now
4:48
Speaker 1: less than two, which is still a lot, but like
4:50
Speaker 1: you say, plenty of races to go. But it's the
4:52
Speaker 1: fact that it's two rounds in a row he's taken points
4:55
Speaker 1: out of antonellity. Now, obviously that required Antonelli to retire
4:58
Speaker 1: from the Barcelon and the Grandfree after passing him for
5:00
Speaker 1: second place, but that I think it all still contributes.
5:03
Speaker 1: Even having a little bit of flow, it all still
5:05
Speaker 1: counts for something. So I think that's the important element.
5:08
Speaker 1: The other element of it is, yes, that experience point
5:11
Speaker 1: of view on a weekend, which I'm sure as you are,
5:14
Speaker 1: or as you suggested, that he wasn't the quicker Mercedes driver.
5:17
Speaker 1: I looked at my little Excel spreadsheet and analyzed the
5:20
Speaker 1: lap times and I'm pretty convinced he was. And I
5:21
Speaker 1: think it's clear as well they how close Antonali finished
5:24
Speaker 1: behind him, having been more than six seconds behind in
5:27
Speaker 1: that first in having started down in fourth and then
5:30
Speaker 1: dropped a fifth as well early in the race too.
5:33
Speaker 1: I think it's clear he was the quicker driver. But
5:35
Speaker 1: there was this sense that to come back to something
5:37
Speaker 1: I think I said earlier that that total control that
5:40
Speaker 1: that Russell had. I think also in the context of
5:43
Speaker 1: if you remember, one of the flaws of Russel in
5:46
Speaker 1: previous seasons has been this tendency to kind of overreach,
5:51
Speaker 1: to try and control more variables than he can control,
5:54
Speaker 1: to overdo it at times. Think about some of the
5:55
Speaker 1: poles he started from then we completely fluffed the first
5:58
Speaker 1: into whatever he crashed in Singapore, chasing lead, all those
6:00
Speaker 1: sorts of things. There was a point in qualifying, and
6:03
Speaker 1: this was brought up because it sounded like maybe there
6:05
Speaker 1: was arguing on the radio, but apparently it wasn't. Where
6:06
Speaker 1: tota Will said, George, just drive or whatever was he
6:09
Speaker 1: said exactly, And it seems like part of his development
6:13
Speaker 1: in the last couple of races was returning to that
6:15
Speaker 1: place we saw last year. He doesn't have to do
6:17
Speaker 1: that overreaching. Feels like there's been a tendency for him
6:20
Speaker 1: to do that in the last couple of rounds, perhaps
6:21
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, and part of him winning this race
6:24
Speaker 1: was him recentering himself on that I'm just going to
6:26
Speaker 1: go out and do my race, and he goes fast
6:28
Speaker 1: as I can, not going to think about all the
6:29
Speaker 1: other drivers too much. I'm not going to think about
6:31
Speaker 1: trying to over engineer this car to get what I
6:34
Speaker 1: need out of it. You know, he talked about modifying
6:36
Speaker 1: his driving style, that kind of thing. I think, you know,
6:38
Speaker 1: he talked a lot about proving he could still do it.
6:41
Speaker 1: For me, it's a little bit less proving that he's
6:42
Speaker 1: still fast, but proving that he can still look like
6:46
Speaker 1: the driver that we thought he was going to be
6:48
Speaker 1: this season and then build from that because he's not. Again,
6:51
Speaker 1: he wasn't the quickest Mercedes driver this weekend. He still
6:53
Speaker 1: has weird though. I think it is to say something
6:56
Speaker 1: a little bit to prove alongside Antonelli. But we know
6:58
Speaker 1: now he's found that level. This is no longer getting worse.
7:01
Speaker 1: It can get better from here.
7:03
Speaker 2: The just drive comments really interesting because I mean, he
7:06
Speaker 2: can get a bit sort of binary with this, but
7:08
Speaker 2: he strikes me he's a guy who's a more cerebral driver.
7:11
Speaker 2: He's not your old school, you know driver and you know,
7:14
Speaker 2: stub your cigarette out on the grid and jump in
7:16
Speaker 2: and just rag a car for all that's worth it.
7:18
Speaker 2: And that's not who George Russell is. But the development
7:21
Speaker 2: of these guys. Yeah, he's been in it a while,
7:22
Speaker 2: but they all develop as people and drivers along the way.
7:26
Speaker 2: It's great to be a cerebral driver, but it's also
7:28
Speaker 2: great for these more intelligent drivers to know when to
7:31
Speaker 2: park that and just drive. As Toto Wolf said, there's
7:35
Speaker 2: you know, it's something I think that Max de Stappen
7:37
Speaker 2: does incredibly well in that we know that he's a
7:39
Speaker 2: very very smart operator, but there's also times where just
7:42
Speaker 2: the bare faced aggression and the white knuckle I'm just
7:45
Speaker 2: going to really go for this. You've almost got to
7:47
Speaker 2: park that side of your brain a little bit. And
7:48
Speaker 2: I think the interesting part about this season is that
7:51
Speaker 2: perhaps Russell has arrived at a place, you know, seven
7:54
Speaker 2: rounds in before we raced in Austria on the weekend,
7:57
Speaker 2: maybe mentally he didn't expect to be in I don't
7:59
Speaker 2: know any of us could have anticipated where Antonelli and
8:02
Speaker 2: how fast Antonelli was going to come on this year.
8:04
Speaker 2: We thought he would be good, and we knew the
8:05
Speaker 2: car would be good, but I don't think any of
8:08
Speaker 2: us really had the first seven rounds playing out like
8:10
Speaker 2: the way they did, so Russell, I don't think he
8:12
Speaker 2: was facing some sort of existential crisis or something. But
8:15
Speaker 2: it does make you think and sometimes just doing the simplistic.
8:18
Speaker 2: I mean, look, Toto Wolf isn't a guy to waste
8:20
Speaker 2: words in those sorts of situations. He's very clever, I
8:23
Speaker 2: think with some of the messaging, and there was more
8:26
Speaker 2: to that that it's not just you know, it's not
8:28
Speaker 2: shut up and drive George and stop thinking. It's perhaps
8:31
Speaker 2: you know, just get on with the job at hand
8:33
Speaker 2: and stop maybe considering so many of the variables. Your
8:37
Speaker 2: best is good enough if you just concentrate on the
8:39
Speaker 2: next thing that's in front of you. And it felt
8:40
Speaker 2: like one of those sorts of weekends. And what was
8:43
Speaker 2: interesting in the latter stages of the race was yes,
8:46
Speaker 2: the gaps were coming down, but I don't I don't
8:48
Speaker 2: know how you for. It never felt vulnerable. It felt
8:50
Speaker 2: like he was controlling. And that goes back to the
8:54
Speaker 2: you know, I said, the type of when he needed
8:56
Speaker 2: he needed a win, where he could have said afterwards, well,
8:58
Speaker 2: you know, if I needed to push up could if
9:00
Speaker 2: it was fine, he had everything under control. And since Melbourne,
9:04
Speaker 2: I don't feel like this has been a season that
9:06
Speaker 2: has necessarily been in his control. And that's almost as important,
9:10
Speaker 2: if not more important, than the points he gained on Antonelli.
9:12
Speaker 2: I think there was just more a resting of the
9:15
Speaker 2: control of the narrative and it played out on the
9:18
Speaker 2: course of the weekend.
9:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean despite the gap being sometimes less than
9:22
Speaker 1: one and a half seconds, no one ever made a
9:23
Speaker 1: move on run. No. I think that sort of says plenty,
9:25
Speaker 1: whereas every other driver seemed to have moves made on
9:27
Speaker 1: them or have to make moves at some point. I mean,
9:30
Speaker 1: contrasts with Antonelli in a way. I don't think it
9:32
Speaker 1: really has so far this season. I don't want to.
9:35
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel like it's a little bit too much
9:37
Speaker 1: of a beat up to say, well, it's the veteran
9:39
Speaker 1: versus the young guy in the second season, Oh, it's
9:42
Speaker 1: the massive golf. There is an element of that, but
9:44
Speaker 1: I think it can be overplayed. But we saw a
9:46
Speaker 1: little bit of that in qualifying, where Russell perfectly managed
9:48
Speaker 1: the yellow flags. Questionable it was only single yellows, but
9:51
Speaker 1: he did it. He saw it. Anthony didn't assumed, as
9:54
Speaker 1: many drivers would have, that they were going to be doubles,
9:56
Speaker 1: but they weren't, and he abandoned that qualifying lap and
9:59
Speaker 1: he admitted he he wasn't going to get poll position
10:01
Speaker 1: anyway because that Russell lap was really good. But if
10:03
Speaker 1: he'd started on the front row, I think he would
10:04
Speaker 1: have won this Grand Prix, and I think he would
10:06
Speaker 1: have known that as well. I thought it was interesting though,
10:09
Speaker 1: that after the race, when the weekend was done, he
10:11
Speaker 1: talked about, well, maybe I got too complacent after being
10:15
Speaker 1: fast in practice, looking like the lead driver in practice,
10:19
Speaker 1: and then by the time he got to qualifying the
10:20
Speaker 1: pressure was on. He sort of tensed up a little
10:22
Speaker 1: bit because he realized he allowed himself to relax too
10:25
Speaker 1: much previously, and you'd become complacent, as he said, I
10:28
Speaker 1: think that's the more interesting lesson. Then, While he's a
10:30
Speaker 1: guy who's got some experience gaps, because we all know
10:32
Speaker 1: he will have some experience gaps, so far, his raw
10:35
Speaker 1: speed has smoothed over all of them. This weekend a
10:38
Speaker 1: little bit bumpy, I suppose, But to me, I think
10:40
Speaker 1: there's a bigger lesson in perhaps his weekend management here,
10:44
Speaker 1: something we hadn't seen previously, And I wonder how much
10:47
Speaker 1: more formidable that might make him really from as soon
10:50
Speaker 1: as this weekend.
10:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely, And it's one thing to feel that or
10:53
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that, yes, this is how I felt over
10:56
Speaker 2: the course of the weekend. The other part of the inexperience,
10:58
Speaker 2: it's that other thing to admit it is. It's one
11:00
Speaker 2: of those things that perhaps you want to try and
11:01
Speaker 2: keep that under your hat a little bit more, But
11:03
Speaker 2: you know, there are just by dint of his age
11:06
Speaker 2: and how inexperience is in Grand Prix terms relative to
11:09
Speaker 2: the very experienced people that he is racing in these
11:11
Speaker 2: top four teams. And that's the other factor in this.
11:13
Speaker 2: He's not just young in Formula one terms, he's young
11:16
Speaker 2: relative to everyone else in the big four teams. I mean,
11:19
Speaker 2: the second least experienced driver in that group is Oscar Piastri,
11:23
Speaker 2: who's felt like he was twenty five years old about
11:25
Speaker 2: five years ago. Is just the way Oscar operates. So
11:28
Speaker 2: there's all part of that. So there's this experienced deficit
11:31
Speaker 2: that you can only feel once you've had the experiences
11:33
Speaker 2: to do it. He strikes me, over the course of
11:36
Speaker 2: his career that we've seen so far, he's not a
11:38
Speaker 2: guy who tends to make the same mistake twice, and
11:41
Speaker 2: I think that's a trait of all the great ones,
11:43
Speaker 2: and it's one of those things that if he ever
11:45
Speaker 2: feels just naturally that me perhaps there's a degree of
11:48
Speaker 2: complacency creeping in, he'll be able to look back and go, no, no, no,
11:51
Speaker 2: but look what happened in Austria. I've got to almost
11:53
Speaker 2: snap myself out of this and change the way I operate.
11:56
Speaker 2: And I think that's just something that when you're nineteen
11:58
Speaker 2: years old and you've done one one third seasons of
12:00
Speaker 2: Formula one, it's inevitable that these sorts of things are
12:03
Speaker 2: going to happen. And so getting back to the experience
12:06
Speaker 2: point that you made earlier, Yes, it's a trump card
12:09
Speaker 2: for George Russell at the moment, but it's only going
12:11
Speaker 2: to be a trump card for so long, and that
12:13
Speaker 2: there'll come a point where performance and experience are intersecting
12:18
Speaker 2: arrows on a graphich you could probably put in one
12:20
Speaker 2: of your fantastic Excel spreadsheets, which I like to read
12:22
Speaker 2: but have no idea how to do. But you know
12:26
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, Like, there is a point where just
12:28
Speaker 2: the experience part, and you allow that to his natural speed,
12:32
Speaker 2: that's going to become less of a deficiency for him.
12:34
Speaker 2: So you could put this one in that, Yeah, it's
12:36
Speaker 2: a good lesson learned over the course of the weekend.
12:38
Speaker 2: But I agree with you. If he was on the
12:40
Speaker 2: front row and that was a misreading of a yellow
12:44
Speaker 2: flag situation, that was completely understandable because you probably should
12:48
Speaker 2: have had double wave yellow flags on that for stap
12:50
Speaker 2: and crashing Qualifi and that's another matter. But it doesn't
12:53
Speaker 2: strike me as a mistake he's going to make. Again.
12:55
Speaker 2: I think the experienced guys just go through with what
12:57
Speaker 2: they're going to go through and then live with the consequences,
12:59
Speaker 2: rather than pre a ruling on something and back out
13:02
Speaker 2: of it. But again, he's only nineteen, and the experience
13:06
Speaker 2: bucket is only going to get more full.
13:08
Speaker 1: Yes, And I think as well, just seeing as strange
13:10
Speaker 1: as it is to say, for two drivers who were
13:12
Speaker 1: building up and who are the main title contenders, he'll
13:15
Speaker 1: be learning a lot from Russell in those moments. So
13:17
Speaker 1: Russell nailing that is different to just neither of them
13:20
Speaker 1: really quite getting it done. Seeing that another driver was
13:23
Speaker 1: capable of doing more than him this weekend with less
13:26
Speaker 1: in many respects, with less speed least in the race,
13:29
Speaker 1: I think will also be its own lesson for him.
13:32
Speaker 1: So I don't necessarily see this as a turning point.
13:36
Speaker 1: You never know, do You don't know until we get
13:38
Speaker 1: the next couple of races. But I don't see this
13:39
Speaker 1: is a definitive kind of result between Well Russell finally
13:42
Speaker 1: stopping the Antonelli train, all that kind of thing. I
13:44
Speaker 1: think it is important, but potentially not decided, But the
13:48
Speaker 1: next few races may be more important, particularly with Russell's
13:51
Speaker 1: home race coming up this weekend. We'll talk a little
13:53
Speaker 1: bit about Red Bull Racing a little bit later on,
13:55
Speaker 1: because there's more to this for Stappen's story than just
13:57
Speaker 1: this being a good result for him finishing second. For
14:00
Speaker 1: him to be so celebratory about the second place finish,
14:02
Speaker 1: but that says its own thing. So I just want
14:04
Speaker 1: to touch on McLaren here a bit of an anonymous
14:07
Speaker 1: weekend for them. This is a track they've normally done
14:08
Speaker 1: quite well, and I think we mentioned this last week.
14:10
Speaker 1: Lando Norris has traditionally been very strong here. This is
14:13
Speaker 1: the first time he's been beaten by his teammate, in
14:15
Speaker 1: this case Oscar Piastri, ever when both have seen the
14:17
Speaker 1: checker flag in Austria. So that's its own answer to
14:20
Speaker 1: the story about Piastre having a slump and not liking
14:23
Speaker 1: these cars and being beaten by Norris and all that
14:26
Speaker 1: kind of thing. But another weekend and how long ago
14:29
Speaker 1: does Miami feel like now? Which the team just really
14:32
Speaker 1: had no answer in qualifying, no answer in the race,
14:35
Speaker 1: felt very much like a bit part player. Piastri was fourth,
14:37
Speaker 1: but not really close to the podium. It feels like
14:41
Speaker 1: the trajectory McLaren had set for itself the last couple
14:45
Speaker 1: of years, it's struggling much more this year to fulfill.
14:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that part of the reason we're
14:50
Speaker 2: looking at it through this lens is Austria's kind of
14:52
Speaker 2: been a bit of a key race for them, hasn't
14:54
Speaker 2: it the last couple of years where they've bough significant
14:56
Speaker 2: upgrades and things have worked or they've looked really, really legitimate.
14:59
Speaker 2: By the way Oscar Piastri now one point ahead of
15:01
Speaker 2: Lando Norris in the World championship standings. You won't be
15:04
Speaker 2: seeing that in your skysworts promos this weekend for Silveston,
15:06
Speaker 2: but that's by the buyer. But the good news is
15:08
Speaker 2: the Oscar Piastre is not dead. He still in Formula one,
15:11
Speaker 2: he's still doing quite nicely. But it was very much
15:14
Speaker 2: make the best of a bad lot and the wider context. Look,
15:18
Speaker 2: I agree with what you're saying with McLaren, and it
15:20
Speaker 2: goes back to what we were saying last week where
15:22
Speaker 2: I still feel that they're of all the years to
15:26
Speaker 2: be a customer team in a top four championship fight.
15:28
Speaker 2: When you are the only customer team, I still think
15:30
Speaker 2: that's playing quite a part. The other part of this
15:33
Speaker 2: is that Mercedes has won what's seven out of the
15:36
Speaker 2: eight Grand Prix so far, and the team that's their
15:39
Speaker 2: nearest challenger it's never the same team. That's the thing.
15:42
Speaker 2: The dividing part of this season is that oh, look
15:44
Speaker 2: here comes Ferrari and oh look red Bulls having a
15:46
Speaker 2: really good race, of oh McLaren were really good somewhere,
15:48
Speaker 2: and then they're kind of a bit anonymous, where Mercedes
15:51
Speaker 2: is just the ever present and then someone's going to
15:54
Speaker 2: be second, but we don't quite know who it is
15:55
Speaker 2: at the moment. But look, in terms of what Piastre
15:58
Speaker 2: did over the course of the weekend, it's hard to
16:00
Speaker 2: imagine how he could have done much more. I mean,
16:02
Speaker 2: I wonder if that fourth place probably should have been
16:06
Speaker 2: Lewis Hamilton's, which might be a reflection of Ferrari's weekend,
16:09
Speaker 2: but that's another topic. But you just wonder with this
16:12
Speaker 2: McLaren thing. The car is still a bit draggy, it's
16:14
Speaker 2: still a bit overweight. It's not quite on the path,
16:17
Speaker 2: as you said before, where they think they should be.
16:20
Speaker 2: I don't think they think they should be winning races
16:23
Speaker 2: and being at the top of the championship what they
16:25
Speaker 2: have for the past two years right now, but this
16:27
Speaker 2: felt like a step back. So yeah, for Piastre to
16:31
Speaker 2: actually get some points out of this weekend, remembering, of
16:33
Speaker 2: course that he has still missed one quarter of the
16:36
Speaker 2: eight races this season. That's the other factor in this
16:38
Speaker 2: championship table. That percentage is going down, hopefully, but it
16:41
Speaker 2: still is a factor. I thought he was about as
16:44
Speaker 2: good as he could have been in the circumstances, but
16:46
Speaker 2: they were a little bit underwhelming, and perhaps that's through
16:49
Speaker 2: the lens of the past couple of years. I've got
16:51
Speaker 2: to Austria. Was it two years ago, maybe three years ago,
16:53
Speaker 2: I can't remember. They bought that really big upgrade to Austria,
16:56
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden it's like, oh, hang on,
16:58
Speaker 2: these guys are like a genuine front running team. That
17:00
Speaker 2: was sort of you know, base camp for when they
17:03
Speaker 2: became the best team in the sport. I think that
17:05
Speaker 2: Austria upgrade that year and they've kind of been there
17:07
Speaker 2: ever since. This year, that's clearly not the case. They
17:10
Speaker 2: have some work to do. But then you could say
17:12
Speaker 2: that about the other three teams in the Big four
17:14
Speaker 2: and quite frankly everyone else behind them who were kind
17:18
Speaker 2: of irrelevant in Austria on the weekend.
17:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think it was twenty three and twenty
17:21
Speaker 1: four they brought quite big up. It was the parts
17:23
Speaker 1: of them to Austria, wasn't it. Twenty three made them respectable,
17:26
Speaker 1: especially the subsequent round of Silverston. And in twenty four
17:29
Speaker 1: was when Norris Chrashtian of a staff and battling, Well, no,
17:31
Speaker 1: the other way around. I beg your pardon with Stafford
17:33
Speaker 1: Krashton to Norris battling for the lead. Yes, and we
17:36
Speaker 1: all thought maybe the title could have been on and
17:38
Speaker 1: then and then it was not. So there's an interesting
17:41
Speaker 1: interesting counterpoints between the Mercedes powered teams at the front.
17:44
Speaker 1: Let's move now, though to Move of the Week, brought
17:46
Speaker 1: to you by Shannon's two racing categories in action. Over
17:49
Speaker 1: the weekend, both Formula One and Moto GP. What caught
17:52
Speaker 1: your eye this weekend? Bad?
17:54
Speaker 2: I'm going to go Moto GP with an F one
17:58
Speaker 2: an aside, I'm going to go a little bit lateral
18:00
Speaker 2: here because I'm going to save the F one stuff
18:02
Speaker 2: for you. A bit of yo yo racing going on
18:04
Speaker 2: in Austria, I'm not sure. I wasn't quite wasn't quite
18:07
Speaker 2: enjoying that. Yeah, I don't really like yoyo racing. Let's go.
18:10
Speaker 2: But I'm going to go two wheels here because we
18:13
Speaker 2: had Ayagura winning the Grand Prix of the Netherlands I
18:16
Speaker 2: Motor GP, his first Premier class race victory. Fantastic writer
18:21
Speaker 2: who's come on massively this year. Their Prelier is the
18:23
Speaker 2: best bike in the field as we know. The F
18:26
Speaker 2: one adjunct to this is that Agura in his general
18:30
Speaker 2: interview demeanor, he's very sort of He's about as verbosas
18:33
Speaker 2: Kimmi Raichen was. And that's and I'm not saying that
18:38
Speaker 2: as Braze obviously, because we've tried to get content out
18:40
Speaker 2: of people and some people don't want to participate. But
18:43
Speaker 2: I think the analogy that people are drawing between Agura
18:45
Speaker 2: and reichenan is wrong. I actually think he's more Micka
18:47
Speaker 2: Hacketan than Kimmy Ryichen, simply because I remember Micka Hackenon
18:52
Speaker 2: once explaining why it took so long to answer questions
18:55
Speaker 2: in press conferences, and he explained that he was deciphering
18:59
Speaker 2: the question in English, putting it into finish, coming up
19:02
Speaker 2: with his answer, and finish, then coming up with an
19:03
Speaker 2: answer in English, and then saying it. So that's why
19:05
Speaker 2: there was always this time delay. So he thinks very
19:08
Speaker 2: carefully about what he wants to say, and that's the
19:10
Speaker 2: trait I see in Agura, whereas to me, I thought
19:13
Speaker 2: a lot of Reichen and stuff was just he just
19:15
Speaker 2: opened disdain for participating and just generally being obstructive because
19:18
Speaker 2: he thought it was funny and it was counterculture and
19:20
Speaker 2: cool and all that sort of stuff. But there's my
19:23
Speaker 2: move of the week. It's like we've got Micka hacknad
19:25
Speaker 2: on two wheels twitching five years after Micka won the
19:28
Speaker 2: World championship. But the Agura thing. And listeners to our
19:31
Speaker 2: Motor GP version of this podcast, one of my oft
19:34
Speaker 2: mentioned sayings in that podcast is that styles make fights.
19:38
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite little sporting analogies and I
19:41
Speaker 2: love the way that a Gura goes about it because
19:44
Speaker 2: he goes about it in a manner that's absolutely not
19:46
Speaker 2: like anybody else on the current motor GP grid. And
19:49
Speaker 2: he's got this incredible late race pace that everyone knows
19:53
Speaker 2: that he is coming and no one has found an
19:55
Speaker 2: antidote for. And so when you're watching a race and
19:58
Speaker 2: seeing him stealthily move through the field, there's an inevitability
20:02
Speaker 2: to what he's doing at the moment. And watching him
20:05
Speaker 2: just move through the pack, ticking people off one after
20:07
Speaker 2: the other and then just disappearing like he did at
20:09
Speaker 2: Assen when he got to the front on the weekend,
20:12
Speaker 2: really interesting person to have at the top end of
20:15
Speaker 2: the world championship. He's only twenty five points off the
20:17
Speaker 2: championship lead now simply because there's no one that's really
20:20
Speaker 2: doing it like he does. And I do like a
20:22
Speaker 2: counterpoint when it comes to championship fight. So move of
20:25
Speaker 2: the Week is Igura is a legitimate championship contender, but
20:28
Speaker 2: not in the way that perhaps we usually see a
20:30
Speaker 2: motor GP championship contenders. So I've managed to combine motor
20:34
Speaker 2: GP F one and be very very left field. So
20:36
Speaker 2: this might be my best effort in moving of the
20:38
Speaker 2: week yet I dare say that you might actually stick
20:41
Speaker 2: to something that happened on track, or perhaps a couple
20:43
Speaker 2: of passes that were completed. Maybe not on the track,
20:46
Speaker 2: but that's.
20:47
Speaker 1: Just me proud. I am going to go on the track,
20:50
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit of a twist to get there.
20:53
Speaker 1: My move of the week, very, this might be the
20:55
Speaker 1: first actual overtake we've had the move of the week
20:57
Speaker 1: in a very but it's maybe you like it when
21:01
Speaker 1: I get to the end of it. Is Antonelli blasting
21:04
Speaker 1: past Charlotte Clerk quite easily into turn nine. This was
21:07
Speaker 1: in lap seven from a very long way back, too
21:09
Speaker 1: far back to have been a normal racing move. That's
21:12
Speaker 1: because it was all about how much electrical energy Antonelli had.
21:15
Speaker 1: We know the story with these engines. This is my
21:17
Speaker 1: move of the week, not because it was a great move.
21:18
Speaker 1: I mean Antonelli was recovering from a bad start and
21:21
Speaker 1: was always going to get past Charlot Clerk. Because it
21:23
Speaker 1: was the most I used this word I think advisedly,
21:27
Speaker 1: the most visceral demonstration of everything that's wrong with Ferrari
21:31
Speaker 1: right now on a dreadful weekend, for a team that
21:34
Speaker 1: you know, three or four days ago were saying, well,
21:37
Speaker 1: could be in contention for the title. It looked pretty
21:39
Speaker 1: good in Barcelona, didn't they. They were awful in Austria,
21:43
Speaker 1: so bad in Austria, flattered by qualifying. You know, for
21:47
Speaker 1: a brief period of time we thought they'd locked out
21:48
Speaker 1: the front row. Then Russell came through and it was
21:50
Speaker 1: a two to three and we thought, well, that's that's
21:52
Speaker 1: not bad. But Russell should have been much more ahead
21:56
Speaker 1: of him than he was in the end because of
21:57
Speaker 1: that yellow flag. Antionale should have been ahead of them. Okay,
22:00
Speaker 1: they would have qualified on the second row, but in
22:02
Speaker 1: the race, the race face was dreadful, all fastest team.
22:06
Speaker 1: I think, you know, you could argue that had they
22:08
Speaker 1: executed strategy better. I thought it was interesting that Fred Vassa,
22:11
Speaker 1: the team principle, said afterwards, well, we took too long
22:13
Speaker 1: to realize we weren't racing Mercedes, and that kind of
22:16
Speaker 1: shut ourselves in the foot with that. So it maybe
22:18
Speaker 1: could have rescued a fourth, so a head of McLaren.
22:21
Speaker 1: But I mean, in the race, were just so bad
22:25
Speaker 1: and it was all really down to or the crux
22:28
Speaker 1: of it was down to not even engine power, and
22:31
Speaker 1: I thought it was good that Lewis Hamilton made this
22:32
Speaker 1: distinction afterwards, it's not engine power, it's how much electrical
22:36
Speaker 1: deployment they've got, so that's how efficiently they're charging the
22:38
Speaker 1: battery and then how long they're able to make that
22:40
Speaker 1: last on down the straits. There were points in the
22:43
Speaker 1: race and you can look at the speed trace and
22:45
Speaker 1: it was similar in qualifying, not quite as it exaggerated
22:48
Speaker 1: twenty kilometers an hour down on the run to turn
22:50
Speaker 1: four and then also to turn nine where Antonelly made
22:53
Speaker 1: this overtake. That's almost different category speeds. That's how bad
22:58
Speaker 1: it was. Now this track was particular hard for the engine.
23:00
Speaker 1: We know that. I don't think this one does. It
23:03
Speaker 1: wasn't a fluke that the Ferrari won in Barcelona despite this.
23:06
Speaker 1: It's because that track doesn't play into that weakness as much.
23:09
Speaker 1: But I think it was a really painful and important
23:12
Speaker 1: moment in which Ferrari is probably brought back down to earth.
23:16
Speaker 1: Also the weekend on which they brought an engine upgrade,
23:18
Speaker 1: which they say work, so that probably tells you how
23:21
Speaker 1: much more effort they've got to go to. But so
23:24
Speaker 1: my move of the week is Ferrari within a few
23:27
Speaker 1: days going from tidal outsider to absolutely nowhere in.
23:31
Speaker 2: A way that Ferrari could only do what I thought
23:33
Speaker 2: when I was watching you mentioned the speed trace figures.
23:36
Speaker 2: They were alarming. It was like you said a different category.
23:39
Speaker 1: I was.
23:40
Speaker 2: As I was watching what was going on in Austria,
23:42
Speaker 2: I was thinking about other tracks. I'm trying to, like
23:44
Speaker 2: I'm doing track maps in my head, thinking of what
23:47
Speaker 2: other tracks this is going to be even worse at
23:49
Speaker 2: in terms of deployment, silves Well, Silverstone, the Kemel straight
23:54
Speaker 2: at Spa, the Stain, the staff finished straight in Mexico,
23:57
Speaker 2: like they may as well start now. I mean, let's
24:00
Speaker 2: just get an early run on everyone turned up four
24:03
Speaker 2: months early. I just kept thinking of going through the
24:05
Speaker 2: back straight at Cota. I'm just going through circuits in
24:07
Speaker 2: my head now thinking where are they just going to
24:10
Speaker 2: be completely breathless about halfway down in the strait and
24:12
Speaker 2: it's going to be grim. I mean, fortunately, some of
24:15
Speaker 2: those tracks I mentioned Mexico Cota are later in the season,
24:17
Speaker 2: so you would hope that there's some sort of improvement,
24:20
Speaker 2: But it was I mean, I think what was Charlockla
24:23
Speaker 2: forty five seconds behind the race winner. In Australia's half
24:27
Speaker 2: a second a lap, it's more than half a second lap.
24:29
Speaker 2: That's just absolutely brutal. But yeah, mover of the week
24:33
Speaker 2: from a glass overflowing fall to basically empty with one
24:37
Speaker 2: drop in it in a space of about four days.
24:39
Speaker 2: What a Ferrari storyline that is.
24:41
Speaker 1: I think, actually, you know, I picked the Andelli moves
24:43
Speaker 1: a great demonstration, but maybe the best demonstration. Actually, i'd
24:45
Speaker 1: only just gone back and reading through all the quotes today.
24:48
Speaker 1: Was you remember after Barcelona that Lando Norris came out
24:51
Speaker 1: and he said had a better engine, they'd be embarrassing
24:54
Speaker 1: all of us. After this race, he said, I felt
24:56
Speaker 1: bad for Fani. Oh god, that's how much the standing
25:00
Speaker 1: of the teams fall and in one race. So some
25:03
Speaker 1: big work to do there. Like we said, I think
25:05
Speaker 1: Silverston is going to be a much more challenging race,
25:07
Speaker 1: or is going to be an equally challenging race for
25:09
Speaker 1: them perhaps, or it's going to be challenging one way
25:11
Speaker 1: or another. And Spa. So two out of the three
25:13
Speaker 1: next races, so three out of the four block of
25:15
Speaker 1: European races that we're talking about now are going to
25:18
Speaker 1: be tough, but you know, maybe Pennsilvy for a woman
25:20
Speaker 1: in Hungary. Who's to say it's very unpredictable, just as
25:24
Speaker 1: I think Red Bull racings are sent to just about
25:27
Speaker 1: the top of the sport. This weekend very specifically was
25:31
Speaker 1: was to some degree unpredictable because as you mentioned earlier,
25:34
Speaker 1: and I think this is the point, picking whose Mercedes'
25:37
Speaker 1: closest challenger any weekend has become a real mugs game.
25:40
Speaker 1: I've stopped doing as a matter of course, because every
25:44
Speaker 1: weekend feels very different. Red Bull Racing did bring a big,
25:48
Speaker 1: a big upgrade package to this round, one that engineering reporters,
25:52
Speaker 1: which I'm not one, have described it as a wholesale
25:55
Speaker 1: concept changed to the way that Red Bull car works,
25:57
Speaker 1: so it wasn't just the number of parts but rather
25:59
Speaker 1: what they were trying to achieve. Scrappy start in practice,
26:02
Speaker 1: a lot of technical problems, a lot of complaints from
26:04
Speaker 1: both Max with Staffan and Isaac Hadja. There was also
26:07
Speaker 1: a problem in the car that triggered that crash at
26:09
Speaker 1: the end of Q three for Verstappen's Sockley. Whether that
26:11
Speaker 1: was upgrade related per se, but was a car problem
26:14
Speaker 1: in the race. In race pace very effective. I think
26:17
Speaker 1: Verstappen was is what Laura Mecki has said, but I
26:20
Speaker 1: tend to agree with him. Actually, he was probably the
26:22
Speaker 1: second quickert driver, just behind Antonelli in the Grand Prix.
26:25
Speaker 1: Had he started a little bit higher up, could have
26:28
Speaker 1: won the race. Had Red Bull Racing undercut, could he
26:31
Speaker 1: have won the race? This was and I think the
26:33
Speaker 1: contests of it. There's two things to remember here. Verstappen
26:36
Speaker 1: is incredibly good at this particular track and always has been,
26:39
Speaker 1: whether he's had the best car in the business or not.
26:42
Speaker 1: This is just one of his absolutely strongest tracks. So
26:45
Speaker 1: I also think we need to consider that the result
26:48
Speaker 1: is coming off a low base. So when they've come
26:51
Speaker 1: here in the past and they look like the class
26:53
Speaker 1: of the field, or at least they're in the fire,
26:54
Speaker 1: he has a very good weekend.
26:55
Speaker 2: Well. Yes, of course our expectations were probably muted a little.
27:00
Speaker 2: I think it was a very timely demonstration of Formula one,
27:05
Speaker 2: with how complex and technical and large it is these days,
27:08
Speaker 2: there are very few individual decision makers in terms of
27:12
Speaker 2: just people can move the needle by themselves, and he
27:15
Speaker 2: is probably the foremost person in sport. We saw that
27:17
Speaker 2: last year and that comeback that he had last year
27:20
Speaker 2: to come within a couple of points of winning the
27:21
Speaker 2: World Championship was something that only one driver could have done,
27:24
Speaker 2: and we said that at the time, and this was
27:26
Speaker 2: just a demonstration of the fact that he's far more
27:29
Speaker 2: ready to compete for meaningful things than his team in
27:32
Speaker 2: his car is, which is interesting in the context of
27:35
Speaker 2: some of the other stuff that's going on that I
27:37
Speaker 2: know we're going to get to in a minute. But
27:38
Speaker 2: it looked legitimate, and I always think the sensible barometer,
27:43
Speaker 2: I just accept that he's going to be really, really
27:45
Speaker 2: good ninety nine and a half percent of the time
27:47
Speaker 2: because he just is where's the other car? Is normally
27:50
Speaker 2: the thing that I look at with Red Bull and
27:52
Speaker 2: how competitive it is, And I thought that Isaacadja had
27:54
Speaker 2: a perfectly acceptable weekend out. He was in the middle
27:57
Speaker 2: of that McLaren and Ferrari sort of business, in that
28:01
Speaker 2: second tier behind Mercedes, but it was quite decent and
28:04
Speaker 2: he looked pretty reasonable. You even take out the other
28:07
Speaker 2: worldly talent of the Stapanese, it's clear that the upgrades
28:09
Speaker 2: got some advantages to it. But we said this in
28:12
Speaker 2: the preview last week. Austria is a weird sort of
28:14
Speaker 2: a circuit, like, it's great they bought the upgrades. It's
28:16
Speaker 2: great they were competitive. It's a bit of a one
28:19
Speaker 2: of one. There's not really another track like this place,
28:21
Speaker 2: and so you know, we need we need more data, Bicle,
28:24
Speaker 2: because forbul one doesn't have enough. We need more data.
28:27
Speaker 2: We need a greater sample set to see whether this
28:29
Speaker 2: is real or whether it's track specific, and then if
28:32
Speaker 2: it's track specific, how much of it is Max specific.
28:36
Speaker 2: He was fantastic. The team was clearly a lot better,
28:38
Speaker 2: but more evidence needed.
28:40
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think so it is a specific
28:43
Speaker 1: track as well. Was also roasting hot. I mean there
28:45
Speaker 1: was an especial track temperature was fifty three degrees for
28:48
Speaker 1: the races. Crazy, but there were various different teams reporting
28:52
Speaker 1: greetings of sixty or more at the start of the race.
28:54
Speaker 1: So just blisteringly in some cases with the ties literally hot,
28:59
Speaker 1: and which also would have played you know, not to
29:00
Speaker 1: go back to Ferrari. But clearly they didn't like the
29:02
Speaker 1: heat very much. In fact, at one point the whole
29:04
Speaker 1: engine was overheating. That to turn the whole thing down
29:07
Speaker 1: McLaren quite possibly. We know they're struggling with tie where
29:10
Speaker 1: so could there have been more inherent pace in a
29:12
Speaker 1: more normal temperature. One suspects that the British summer this
29:15
Speaker 1: weekend will be less hot, so it's probably good for
29:17
Speaker 1: everybody involved. How does that change the picture, and how
29:20
Speaker 1: does another very engine sensitive circuit change the picture? Because
29:24
Speaker 1: while this has a lot of long straights in Austria,
29:27
Speaker 1: most of them are preceded by at least one big
29:29
Speaker 1: breaking zone, not right, but something. In Silverston it's pretty
29:33
Speaker 1: much fast corners and long straits. There aren't too many
29:35
Speaker 1: big breaking zones, maybe two, so that's that's going to
29:39
Speaker 1: be more difficult. How does that change things because we
29:41
Speaker 1: don't really you know, the Red Bull power train is
29:44
Speaker 1: in the mix somewhere. Well their face is the best one,
29:46
Speaker 1: but you know, realistically it's in the mix somewhere. We
29:48
Speaker 1: don't know, We don't know exactly where it is. So
29:53
Speaker 1: Silverston will be another interesting test, but certainly it's very
29:55
Speaker 1: heartening for Red Bull Racing. Also quite timely, considering this
29:58
Speaker 1: week or the week leading up to the Austrian gromp or,
30:00
Speaker 1: he saw the resurfacing of a lot of rumors about
30:02
Speaker 1: Max Verstappen's future. Rumors or reports now that his management
30:06
Speaker 1: was talking to Zack Brown at McLaren that they'd asked
30:08
Speaker 1: to talk to Zack Brown and he did talk to them,
30:11
Speaker 1: but they denied there was anything more than just you know,
30:13
Speaker 1: the standard sounding out of who's available here and when
30:16
Speaker 1: and what. But it is the case that his management
30:20
Speaker 1: have said, and so has Red Bull boss Laura Mecki
30:23
Speaker 1: has said that he needs a fast car to remain
30:25
Speaker 1: committed to Red Bull Racing. You know, after moving on
30:28
Speaker 1: from this idea that he could quit the sport at
30:29
Speaker 1: the end of the year, which is mostly ruled out
30:31
Speaker 1: at this point, it's now about well, does he stick
30:34
Speaker 1: with Red Bull Racing? Probably not beyond the end of
30:37
Speaker 1: this year, because I still struggle to see any realistic
30:40
Speaker 1: chance him getting into a front running team next year
30:42
Speaker 1: because they're all really accounted for. But twenty twenty eight
30:44
Speaker 1: is probably more open in those top four teams. And
30:47
Speaker 1: if Red Bull can't show progress between now and then,
30:49
Speaker 1: it also buys him some thinking time, doesn't it, then
30:52
Speaker 1: maybe he could move on.
30:53
Speaker 2: Well, And would you saying you'm talking about any driver here,
30:57
Speaker 2: any top line driver, would you want to necessarily hitch
31:01
Speaker 2: a flag to a particular mass this early for twenty
31:03
Speaker 2: twenty seven, because I still think this rule set is
31:06
Speaker 2: so nascent at this point, we don't really know where
31:10
Speaker 2: it's shaking out yet. You're gonna have a lot more
31:12
Speaker 2: a lot more data to draw upon for twenty eight.
31:14
Speaker 2: But look, I think that you mentioned it before that
31:16
Speaker 2: if you had to, which is the most likely out
31:18
Speaker 2: of him moving or leaving as in the sport For
31:21
Speaker 2: I think moving is winning over leaving right now, But
31:24
Speaker 2: it's where do you go? And Red Bull needed to
31:27
Speaker 2: show signs of progress. But I'm still as you said before,
31:33
Speaker 2: the FIA is is that Red Bull has the best
31:34
Speaker 2: engine in the sports, so there's no excuses there, But
31:38
Speaker 2: we do need a greater sample size of circuits and
31:41
Speaker 2: perhaps to go to somewhere where Vastapan doesn't have the
31:44
Speaker 2: historical dominance that he's had previously, somewhere like Austria. This
31:48
Speaker 2: is where Silverston comes in for me, because you mentioned
31:50
Speaker 2: the circuit characteristics of all the tracks we've been to
31:53
Speaker 2: so far with this particular eat particular cars, like the
31:56
Speaker 2: fast and flowing nature of somewhere like Suzuka is probably
31:58
Speaker 2: the greatest corollary to this. Suzuka has at least got
32:03
Speaker 2: some big stops. Silveston generally doesn't, and so in the
32:07
Speaker 2: previous iteration of Formula One cars, they looked absolutely magnificent
32:11
Speaker 2: around Sylvestone. Because of the quartering speeds in the downforce,
32:14
Speaker 2: there could be some really interesting racing going on. And
32:18
Speaker 2: I say interesting, I say interesting not to be complementary.
32:22
Speaker 2: It could be a bit farcical. Actually the nature of
32:24
Speaker 2: this circuit layout, God does what Ferrari must be thinking
32:27
Speaker 2: going there. But it's an interesting test for Red Bull too,
32:29
Speaker 2: because I think it's an instant indicator of how much
32:33
Speaker 2: progress have they made or how much of last weekend
32:35
Speaker 2: was just a driver with something to fight for and
32:38
Speaker 2: filling with a little bit more pepany step at a
32:40
Speaker 2: circuit that is very very good, and that a circuit
32:43
Speaker 2: is a one of one. As we discussed earlier, Silveston's
32:46
Speaker 2: going to reveal quite a lot, and this Mac story
32:49
Speaker 2: is just going to keep bubbling a lot until it's
32:51
Speaker 2: not a story, because that's just how good the guy
32:53
Speaker 2: is and how every team would do backflips to get
32:55
Speaker 2: hold of him.
32:56
Speaker 1: And it's not just the car performance. But there's been
32:58
Speaker 1: reports this week and the last week or so that
33:01
Speaker 1: it's Paul Monaghan, the chief engineer. Who's the latest Red
33:05
Speaker 1: Bull Racing senior staff member to quit the team or
33:07
Speaker 1: we'll be quitting the team to join Cadillac. There's a
33:10
Speaker 1: long list I've written up on the Fox Sports website
33:12
Speaker 1: on Tuesday morning of all those senior staff that I
33:16
Speaker 1: have left, and many more staff behind the scenes too.
33:17
Speaker 1: Of course Red Borders are hiring people, but it's that
33:20
Speaker 1: quantity of experience that walks out the door with these
33:22
Speaker 1: senior figures. Paul have been there since he has been
33:24
Speaker 1: there since two thousand and five. So the Red Bull,
33:26
Speaker 1: entire Red Bull era, you know, that contributes. You know,
33:29
Speaker 1: who are you going to get to convince Maxwis staff
33:31
Speaker 1: and that the team is growing and not trigging. The
33:34
Speaker 1: other element of that sustainability of this upgrade isn't just
33:37
Speaker 1: that we need more tracks, So that's a really important
33:39
Speaker 1: part of it. It's the fact that, and you mentioned
33:41
Speaker 1: this earlier, that every time a team brings an upgrade,
33:43
Speaker 1: the competitive order seems to change. I've gone back through
33:46
Speaker 1: and just made a quick list here. All the big
33:49
Speaker 1: upgrades started around about Miami time, because that was round four,
33:52
Speaker 1: wasn't It was only round four in the season. McLaren
33:56
Speaker 1: A lot of teams brought a lot of upgrades there.
33:57
Speaker 1: McLaren they bought a particularly big one and one the
34:00
Speaker 1: Sprint and almost won the Grand Prix with Landon Norris.
34:02
Speaker 1: And Mercedes brought its reply to Canada and would have
34:04
Speaker 1: had a very comfortable one too, had Georg Russell's engine
34:07
Speaker 1: not failed in Ferrari brought its upgrade to Barcelona, had one,
34:10
Speaker 1: we won the Grand Prix, began the first non Mercedes winner,
34:13
Speaker 1: and Red Bull Racing brought it in Austria and suddenly
34:15
Speaker 1: they're the second closest team. I think that the form guy,
34:18
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny, isn't it, because Mercedes won seven
34:21
Speaker 1: of eight Grand Prix. But I think this season is
34:23
Speaker 1: extremely unpredictable. Nonetheless, because despite having that run of wins
34:29
Speaker 1: all of those races that I mentioned, we shouldn't forget
34:31
Speaker 1: Japan as well. Before the upgrades came, Oscar Piastric came
34:34
Speaker 1: very close to winning McLaren a race there in Mercedes.
34:37
Speaker 1: In any of those races, you could tweak one variable,
34:39
Speaker 1: timing of a safety car in Japan's case, or the
34:41
Speaker 1: timing of a pit stop in Miami or whatever, and
34:44
Speaker 1: you could easily have had half these races not won
34:46
Speaker 1: by Mercedes. Now, half for one team is still a lot,
34:48
Speaker 1: but it's certainly not the kind of domination we sort
34:51
Speaker 1: of feel in the boones I guess so far this season.
34:55
Speaker 1: Who's to say that another upgrade this weekend or the
34:57
Speaker 1: next couple of race weekends changes that.
34:59
Speaker 2: Again, you're saying, is that Aston Martin fans just be patient.
35:02
Speaker 1: It's coming good. It's a big up They've said it's
35:04
Speaker 1: going to be a big upgrade. They said it's going
35:07
Speaker 1: to be huge. They haven't said when it's coming though,
35:10
Speaker 1: which is probably quite tactical as well. Yes, but that's
35:13
Speaker 1: the other element of this is that, Okay, red bull
35:15
Speaker 1: the step forward is probably completely legitimate, but so was
35:19
Speaker 1: Ferrari's step forward in Barcelona. Now we happen to know
35:22
Speaker 1: pretty precisely what Ferrari's weakness is, yes, whereas red Bull's
35:26
Speaker 1: just been so all over the place all year it's
35:28
Speaker 1: sort of hard to pin pin down exactly what the
35:30
Speaker 1: problem was like For a long time, it's just been
35:32
Speaker 1: driveability and general handling, which that seemed les of a
35:35
Speaker 1: problem this weekend, But you know, we could get to
35:38
Speaker 1: Silverstone and it flips again and actually it's you know
35:41
Speaker 1: what could be McLaren again. Who's to say? Well?
35:43
Speaker 2: And the thing about Vstappan two is, you know, we
35:45
Speaker 2: see this in different motorsport categories. He's such a cheap
35:49
Speaker 2: code when it comes to these sorts of things that
35:51
Speaker 2: he can he could win win the car is great,
35:53
Speaker 2: and he can also win win the car isn't. And
35:55
Speaker 2: you've seen that with just the you know, the roadkill
35:58
Speaker 2: of his teammates since Roccardo left at the end of
36:01
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, in that when the car's got more difficult
36:04
Speaker 2: to drive, he just grins and bears it and gets
36:06
Speaker 2: on with it and still extracts race winning pace out
36:08
Speaker 2: of it. And his teammates go from being mildly competent
36:11
Speaker 2: no possibly on the podium, to sorry they have a
36:13
Speaker 2: second car. There's a bit of that going on. So
36:16
Speaker 2: it's a blessing and a curse to employ someone as
36:18
Speaker 2: good as he is, because if you give him the
36:20
Speaker 2: sharpest instrument, he'll slice everyone to bits with it, like
36:22
Speaker 2: he did in twenty twenty three. But when the car
36:24
Speaker 2: is not quite there, he papers over so many cracks
36:27
Speaker 2: that I wonder if you really get a realistic picture
36:29
Speaker 2: of what the good and bad of a particular car
36:31
Speaker 2: is because he is Formula one's cheat code, and the
36:34
Speaker 2: other teams don't necessarily have that one driver that can
36:37
Speaker 2: do that. So maybe you get a more realistic picture
36:40
Speaker 2: and sooner of a car'st deficiencies, whereas you're never quite
36:43
Speaker 2: sure how much of it is car and how much
36:44
Speaker 2: of it is driver. With Red Bull, because they employ
36:47
Speaker 2: the best guy in the sport.
36:48
Speaker 1: The other element of this, and I'm hesitant to say
36:50
Speaker 1: it before we wrap this up because we were talking
36:52
Speaker 1: a lot about it in the context of Lewis HAMILTONI
36:55
Speaker 1: hasn't it, but maxist happens ninety eight points off the
36:58
Speaker 1: title lead. Now the champion t is in the background
37:00
Speaker 1: of everything we're talking about, because there are still a
37:02
Speaker 1: lot of races to go, and as we said, the
37:03
Speaker 1: form guide feels like it changes so rapidly that it
37:06
Speaker 1: still feels too early by as being only three races
37:09
Speaker 1: before the break for rule anything out definitively because it
37:12
Speaker 1: just doesn't feel outside the realms of possibility that someone
37:15
Speaker 1: suddenly improves by a lot or whatever. Ninety eight points, though,
37:18
Speaker 1: is less than the points he came back from last
37:20
Speaker 1: season relative to Oscar Piastri it was one hundred and
37:23
Speaker 1: three points I think off the top of my head,
37:24
Speaker 1: and in far few were Grand Prix as well. You know,
37:27
Speaker 1: he's obviously not rulling out because it'd be silly to
37:29
Speaker 1: rule out anything, as we said so early this season.
37:32
Speaker 1: But if that form is repeatable at most circuits, doesn't
37:37
Speaker 1: have to be every circuit of couse. Well, to borrow
37:39
Speaker 1: your phrase, he is the cheat code, and you want
37:42
Speaker 1: a cheat code if you're coming back from so far
37:44
Speaker 1: back in a championship.
37:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's an element of this where you look
37:47
Speaker 2: at the way these first eight races have gone. It's
37:49
Speaker 2: basically one third of the season, new rule set. There's
37:52
Speaker 2: a lot more variables in play than there were last year.
37:55
Speaker 2: It seemed more plausible that he could come back from
37:57
Speaker 2: further last year simply because of the continuity of rules
38:00
Speaker 2: and what have you. I think the one thing that
38:02
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five tortoise is that you can never rule
38:05
Speaker 2: someone like him out until they're mathematically ruled out of contention.
38:09
Speaker 2: And you know, again we keep talking about sample sizes
38:12
Speaker 2: with this. If they have another couple of races in
38:14
Speaker 2: the next three where it does look a lot more promising,
38:16
Speaker 2: and they do have a very good track record red
38:18
Speaker 2: Bull of bringing performance that is sustainable. I think they're
38:21
Speaker 2: one of the most agile teams when it comes to
38:23
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, and if you give him so
38:26
Speaker 2: much as a sniff as we saw last year, I
38:29
Speaker 2: don't know. This might be one of those seasons where
38:32
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that he's necessarily a championship contender, but
38:35
Speaker 2: he might shape who is because he's the sort of
38:37
Speaker 2: person that can be an irritant at the front end
38:39
Speaker 2: of races even if he's not necessarily fighting for the
38:41
Speaker 2: world championship towards the end of the season. I trust
38:44
Speaker 2: him more to be that person than any other driver
38:48
Speaker 2: in the other three teams that are in the Big
38:49
Speaker 2: four right now. So yeah, there could be some angst
38:53
Speaker 2: coming up with some Mercedes drivers coming up later in
38:56
Speaker 2: the season, and quite frankly, I am all for it.
38:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think I'm intiterested to see this weekend
39:00
Speaker 1: the British Grand Prix is thinking back to all those
39:03
Speaker 1: changes in form is no team other than Mercedes, obviously
39:05
Speaker 1: has had two really good races in a row to
39:08
Speaker 1: victory contending races in a Row red Bull can do
39:11
Speaker 1: that this weekend. I feel like, just automatically based on
39:13
Speaker 1: that inconsistent form of every other team, that might mean something,
39:16
Speaker 1: but we will wait and see a very different weekend,
39:18
Speaker 1: a sprint weekend as well at the British Grand Prix.
39:20
Speaker 1: But that's all the time we have for pit Talk
39:22
Speaker 1: this week. You can subscribe to pit Talk wherever you
39:24
Speaker 1: get your favorite podcast, and you can leave us a
39:27
Speaker 1: rating and a review as well. This weekend is the
39:29
Speaker 1: Formula one British Grand Prix in creamy Old England, with
39:33
Speaker 1: lights out at midnight Sunday night or Monday morning. You
39:36
Speaker 1: can keep up to date with all the latistef one,
39:38
Speaker 1: Moto GP and supercars news at foxsports dot com dot au.
39:42
Speaker 1: From Matt Kate than me Michael Lovanato. Thanks very much
39:45
Speaker 1: for your company and we'll catch you next week